Friday 11/01/2019
I had a well-being score of 7/10 this morning. Due to my wife having car troubles I was unable to trade yesterday. Today was the last day of my trading month (I always end the month on a Friday).
I took 2 live trades this morning with BABA.
My watchlist today was: AAPL, BABA, MU, AMD, ANET and PINS. I didn’t take PINS that seriously because I did not have shares to short. My game plan was brief, no trading before 1min except for BABA.
BABA had a good quarter, popped in premarket than dropped and slowly moved back to the positive all in PM. Thus, the daily showed a nice hammer for the day. I had a strong bias that the price will pop at the open and if I could get in when it broke the 179.30 tech level I would go long. 15 seconds before the open I saw a L2 signal and went long. This was a bit too aggressive and not well disciplined. The 180.41 daily level was my target with 178.70 as my stop. Though in normal trading that stop would have been OK but for premarket that was a bit tight and should have at least went half shares. But I went full shares I was so confident. But, looking back that was too reckless.
I placed a limit order to sell half my shares just below the 179.80 level which was both a daily and PM level and is at ~1.5R. Luckily the price did pop at the open and my order was filled. Then the price dropped really fast and I should have exited the trade, but thought to set an order at B/E. Wow so much for the stop order, the price flew through my B/E with such a big slide I gave almost all of my profit back in the bad fill.
Then the trade looked like a short with this high volume reverse hammer and two very large sells at the bid. I hope that was the reason and not revenge for the bad exit, but I flipped the position and went short. It was a tight stop at 179.02 daily with a target of 177.94.
I did place a limit order at the 1.5R to help me be more patient, but the bad exit on the previous trade had me a little jittery. So I sold 50% at 1R. But after that I partialled better, with 25% at 2R (VWAP) and 1/8 shares at 4R (200MA-5min). Then sold the last 1/8 at a new 1min high.
I also took a trade with AAPL in SIM for +1R.
Score cards (live trades).
BABA
BABA
81%
87%
What I did good today: I can say that both my trade ideas were correct.
What I am grateful from today? I am grateful for ending the month on a +2R day. I know I didn’t execute well today, so the profit helps take the sting away.
What do I need to improve on: Too aggressive on the first trade on the entry and not aggressive enough on the exit. Essentially, I need a lot of work on trade management. But, at least I feel like I am making progress this month.